News

 

The Morrisburg and District Leo club has never done anything special to acknowledge Remembrance Day, so one of their members, 14 year old Dawson Clouthier, had an idea that he shared with the club.

“I saw an ad on the TV about V.E.T.S. Canada, so I checked them out on Facebook,” said Dawson. 

He supported them himself by liking them on Facebook, and thought that maybe the Leos could do something to donate to the cause.

V.E.T.S. Canada (Veterans Emergency Transition Services)provides aid and comfort to transient and homeless Canadian veterans by providing the essentials in emergencies, and assisting those at risk.

“I am into helping vets. I want to be army,” said Dawson.

The staff at Scotiabank, Linda Robinson who coordinated the bake sale fund raising event for the Leos and Lisa Lewis who supervised the Leos bake sale at the Morrisburg arena were all happy to help Dawson and the Leos contribute to the cause.

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Hi, I’m a one to two year old Great Pyrenees. Like most Great Pyrenees, I am good with kids. I am house trained, but I like being indoors and outdoors equally. I pride myself in being very calm, a bit playful and friendly…I was found in the Iroquois area. (The Great Pyrenees is a large breed dog. Anyone interested in adopting this beauty should consider her size and her need for space. Great Pyrenees are known to be confident, gentle with children and very affectionate pets. 

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 In response to difficult fire situations, including out of control burns and nuisance smoke complaints, faced by the South Dundas fire officials over the summer, municipal staff drafted a bylaw to govern open air burning.

The main source of contention this summer surrounded agricultural burning for land clearing purposes.

The new draft bylaw sets out specific requirements including set backs, brush pile sizes, control measures and permits that will need to be in place for all types of burning, once the bylaw is approved by council. That approval will not come until council’s issues with the requirements and permit fees are addressed.

After a lengthy discussion of the draft bylaw, at a special council meeting November 27, staff was presented with a number of changes.

During the discussions it was indicated that there will be some areas of the municipality, such as the towns of Morrisburg and Iroquois where burning will be prohibited.

Those in areas where open air burning is permitted will have to obtain a permit and pay a small administration fee to offset costs.

The permits guarantee contact between landowners and the municipality, resulting in a record of where and when the burning is to occur, and ensures that there is not a burn ban in place at the time.

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Cornwall and the Counties Tourism, has over 2,000 kilometers of cycling/motorcycling routes mapped and is getting reading to ‘peddle’ this region as a destination for cyclists of all kinds.

Morrisburg will serve as a hub of this activity. 

“We are in the process of creating a paper map,” said Linda Wilson, executive director of Cornwall and the Counties Tourism, who had a draft copy of the map and its routes here in Morrisburg on November 29.

The 28 routes are organized as loops, from  40 km in length to 230 km in length. The recommended routes for cyclists, are considered safe and have water/food amenities available along the way.

The loops include two Quebec entry points as well as entry points from Ottawa and Brockville.

“Our plan is to have the map ready for the end of this year,” said Wilson, who plans to take it to the Vélo show in Montreal in February among other high profile cycling shows in 2013 and to the outdoor and leisure shows in Ottawa in the coming year.

Wilson is also working with GPS technology to push the loop maps to Garmin.

The other side of making the maps work is proper roadside signing of the loops. 

That will come in partnership with the Counties of SD&G. 

In partnership, the two will apply for funding for the signs, and if successful the signs will be installed, on existing posts by the counties road crews.

“The signing will happen, at least partially, if we get the funding, early in the summer if possible,” said Wilson. 

Each loop will be marked by a different colour, making it easy for cyclists to navigate. 

As part of the loop system, Wilson has selected areas across the region as ‘hub’ sites where people can drive to, park and unload their bicycles to cycle some of the loops. 

Morrisburg is one of those hubs that are located across the region.

“Much work is being done at the county level, but there is still work to be done at the local level to support the initiative,” said South Dundas economic development officer Nicole Sullivan.

She suggests investing in some infrastructure such a bike racks and possibly working with businesses to help educate  them on becoming cycle-friendly and cycle-ready.

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 South Dundas council met with the project managers and the contractor who will be renovating the former Morrisburg Collegiate Institute November 27, at a special council meeting to better pin down the cost of the renovation of the old high school.

From the new information and small project changes outlined in a post-tender addendum document that the project team has been preparing over the last couple of months, council now knows that the cost of the renovation project will be $4,093,882.

The team has been working to find savings within the project originally tendered at $3.8 million.

They identified areas of savings through small structural changes, such as keeping an existing stairwell, the use of metal siding on a small portion of the building and changing the elevator specifications.

The document also reflected changes to the project made by council that will add costs.

Council decided that they want the brick on the entire building re-pointed for the sake of both longevity and appearance, which is an added expense.

The project managers and contractor were asked to provide council with a more accurate cost estimate for abatement costs, and within the context of that work they found some added project expenses.

“We didn’t expect the abatement costs to be that high,” said Ron Rivet of True North Group, the project managers. 

“Asbestos was the least of our worries,” he said, explaining that almost $150,000 of abatement costs will have to be spent on mitigation measures for the lead paint, which is throughout the building.

The abatement costs for the asbestos in the building will be about $34,000.

Whether the building is renovated or demolished, the municipality is on the hook for the abatement costs.

“Actually, if you demolished the building it would be a much higher cost,” said Dick Markell, president of Bourgon Construction, the contractor hired to renovate the building. He estimated that in the case of demolition, the abatement costs would likely triple.

“What you will have when we are done is a building that is pretty close to new, and in some ways better than new,” said Markell explaining, “New buildings are not designed and built like this building was built.” According to Markell, the structure of this building is much like that of a hospital.

Once Bourgon Construction gets the official go ahead from council, likely in the form of a resolution at the December 3 council meeting, they expect the project to be complete in nine to 10 months.

“The structure’s up, so the hard part is done,” said Markell. “I’m hoping to get in the ground before Christmas. Getting the services in before the frost gives us a huge jump on the project.”

The contractor was asked about the handling of hazardous material, in close proximity to a public school.

“Anything that is air borne is tarped. We have industry standards that we have to follow,” said Markell. 

“Bourgon has an excellent safety record. That’s one of the reasons we chose them for this project,” said Rivet.

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Twenty community members joined in the conversation about tourism that took place at the McIntosh Country Inn, November 29.

Our Passport to the Future: A Tourism Stakeholder Discussion Forum provided the opportunity for interested community members to speak one on one with the community members who helped identify initiatives to strengthen South Dundas’ tourism sector.

As part of the session, those who attended were asked to rank five sectors on their potential to increase the number of visits, length of stay, repeat business and overall economic benefit in South Dundas. The sectors included; arts and culture, cycling, fishing and boating, history and motorcycling.

Although the question was very definitive, the answer provided by the participants was not.

“In terms of ranking, there is almost an even spread between the sectors,” said South Dundas Economic Development Officer Nicole Sullivan.

“Attendees generally agreed with the sectors and initiatives identified. Much of the feedback spoke to different ideas on applying the initiatives or ways to enhance them which can easily be applied to the implementation plan,” she said.

A common theme noted by the discussion facilitators was the desire to focus activity to the waterfront.

“The need for Lakeshore Drive to be paved was mentioned by several participants,” said Linda Wilson, who was facilitating discussions about cycling and motorcycling.

“The waterfront being a hub of activity is being talked about by a lot of people,” said Donnie Bowes who was facilitating discussions about arts and culture. “People see the waterfront as the place for farmers markets and markets where artisans can showcase their produce and crafts, the place for festivals, the place for people and artists to congregate.”

Susan Le Clair was facilitating discussions about history and noted that people, in the context of history, also believe the focus should be the waterfront. 

“What people are talking about is a critical mass of different activities along the waterfront. These are things that we can probably accomplish,” she said pointing to examples of historical plaques and walking tours. “Things we can accomplish are as important as anything, because anything you can accomplish fuels the community’s enthusiasm.” 

“The next step, and one of our most challenging given how many assets our community has to build on, is narrowing down to two or three areas of focus,” said Sullivan. 

Information from this meeting will contribute to the final tourism development strategy. It will be presented to council in the new year.

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 It might have been a little frosty on Saturday, December 1, when Santa and Mrs. Claus dropped in to marshall the big parade, but the warmth of their welcome made up for that.

Morrisburg gave a big welcome to all the bands, marchers and floats who took part in one of the best Santa Claus parades yet. 

“We had six bands in our parade this year,” said George Davies, who once again organized the 2012 event. 

“There were about 50 different floats and displays, and all kinds of people in costumes walking along the parade route. From what I hear, it was a great day in spite of the weather. Of course, that’s the one thing I can’t do anything about,” he laughed. 

“I will say that the cold was probably a little rough on the musicians with brass instruments. And by the end of the route, our bag pipe players couldn’t play. But all accounts say it was a good parade all the same.”

The colourful celebration took place at 11 a.m. Saturday morning, and wound its way throughout the town. George Davies could be seen on his ATV keeping things moving all along the route. 

“I had eight people helping out with the parade today,” he said, “as well as many volunteers who marched or worked on floats. There’s great spirit in this community.”

After the parade, Santa dropped in to the fire hall to personally meet some of his young fans, and to listen to their Christmas hopes. 

Parade participants took advantage of hot dogs and chocolate milk after the big event finished in the mall area. George laughs that there was a definite run on the hot chocolate all afternoon.

George Davies is already making plans for next year’s Santa Claus parade. He feels that it is never too early to start.

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Emergency services descended on Evonik Oil Additives Canada Inc. Industries of Morrisburg November 23, not for a real emergency, but for real training, in case of a real emergency. 

“As a Responsible Care® company, this is a good measure that we undertake to protect our employees and our community,” says Carmine Bonacci, Evonik President, Plant manager, of Friday’s training exercise that had local emergency service personnel from the South Dundas fire department, Cornwall and SD&G EMS and the SD&G OPP called to the scene of a ‘fire’ in a storage building. 

Bonacci explained that Evonik regularly takes the lead role in ensuring that the community of South Dundas and its emergency response personnel are prepared to appropriately respond to an emergency at the site industry which manufactures oil additives. “At the end of the day, we need to make sure our people and the community are safe.” 

According to Bonacci, most of the additives manufactured are non-hazardous polymers, but some are hazardous raw materials are used during the manufacturing process. 

Friday’s emergency training exercise had been a few weeks in the planning, but only a handful of the employees who left the building following a 9:30 a.m. fire alarm knew that the fire was simulated. 

The emergency responders however did know that the call was simply a training exercise and their response to the scene was quick, as it would be in a real situation. 

Those staff who did know of the drill were on hand to evaluate the scene for later critique to determine how the situation could be better handled in the case of a real emergency. 

“Here we rehearsed a scenario where there was a fire in a storage building,” explained Chris McDonough, Fire Chief for South Dundas Fire and Emergency Services. “When we arrived on scene, we learned that two people were unaccounted for, so we assume that they are in the building. So, our priority is to search for the victims before we suppress the fire.” 

Upon arrival Chief McDonough also received an update concerning what chemicals were in the building in question, that information would be relayed to a hazardous materials team in Cornwall for evaluation. 

“This is a good exercise for all the emergency services,” said McDonough. About 20 South Dundas firefighters, three paramedics and one OPP officer attended the scene. At the end of the scenario, all had the opportunity to discuss areas for improvement. 

“By doing exercises like this, we find out what we can improve on, and that’s what it’s all about,” said McDonough. “It’s a good exercise for them (Evonik) and it’s a training bonus for us.” 

McDonough would like to see South Dundas Fire and Emergency Services participate in a training exercise like this at different locations in the municipality once every year. 

“It is a costly endeavour,” said McDonough referring to the firefighters need to take time off work and for plant production to shut down during the exercise. “But, it’s worth it, because now, in the case of an emergency, we all know exactly what we need to do.”

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A handful of South Dundas residents are among the 30 residents of Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarrry who will be receiving a special decoration on December 9th.

Monday, SDSG Member of Parliament, Guy Lauzon, announced the names of local community leaders who have been selected as recipients of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

“We were overwhelmed with the response to nominations and the number of worthy candidates for the Medals,” said MP Lauzon. 

“We are so blessed to live in such a great community and country. These individuals have truly made a difference and are excellent examples of leaders and Canadians who make us proud.”

The following SDSG residents were named as recipients: Joan Farlinger, Doug Grenkie, Dr. Graham Houze, Trevor Tolley, Helen Tupper, Sean Adams, Bill Bresee, Pastor Thurland Brown, Jim Brownell, Wayne Burns, Father Bernard Cameron, Shirley Coons, Mamie David, Rose Desnoyers, Barbara Ann Glaude, Ernie Filion, Ken Heagle, Sandy Lalonde, Rachelle Lamond, Gilles Latour, Rick Marvell, Dr. Mary Randlett, Gerald Samson, Josee Sauve, Rick Shaver, Sue Tarle, Theresa Taylor, Karen Torrie-Racine, Sandy Weagant and Miriam Wheeler.

A new commemorative medal was created to mark the 2012 celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the Throne as Queen of Canada. 

The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal is a tangible way for Canada to honour Her Majesty for her service to this country. At the same time, it serves to honour significant contributions and achievements by Canadians. A formal ceremony to present the honors will take place on Sunday, December 9th at the St. Andrews Catholic Church in St. Andrew’s West. The event will begin at 1:30 pm and is open to the public to attend.

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No matter how many times the Morrisburg Santa Claus Parade takes to the streets of this town, no one ever tires of the fun and enjoyment it brings to the hundreds who will line the parade route this Saturday to take in the festivities.

“It’s the same route as it has always been,” says perennial organizer George Davies. It starts at Giant Tiger winds its way through town and ends after the procession has made its way through the Morrisburg Plaza. 

Davies says that people can expect to see about the same things as they do every year. 

As Davies starts to talk about the number of bands, incidentally six this year which is more than usual, the at least four dozen floats he expects to see join the parade at 11 a.m this Saturday, and the van full of costumes, everything from Dora to the Grinch, that will be worn by volunteer walkers during the parade, Davies’ smile widens and his eyes get that sparkle reminiscent of the Jolly Old Elf who always steals the show parade day.

“I always look forward to it,” says Davies of the Morrisburg Santa Parade that he has been organizing for 19 years. “And, I’m already working on next year’s which will be the 20th anniversary.”

Speaking of the Jolly Old Elf, Davies mentions that he has recently spoken to Santa about this Saturday’s parade. 

“He told me, it looks like it’s going to be a real good one again this year,” said Davies. 

Santa also asked Davies to remind everyone that after the parade he will be at the firehall handing out peanut free candy canes, to all those who want to meet him. There will be enough chocolate milk and hotdogs for about 400 kids.

Students from Morrisburg Public School will be collecting donations for the local food bank along the parade route.

“The weather looks just about perfect for a parade,” says Davies, who just like the rest of us, can hardly wait for the big day – parade day!

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